Get the latest gossip
‘The Beautiful Game’ Review: Bill Nighy Gives Micheal Ward a Sporting Chance In a Spirited Soccer Drama
Starring Bill Nighy and Micheal Ward, Thea Sharrock's feelgood Netflix film 'The Beautiful Game' raises awareness of the annual Homeless World Cup.
Nathan’s addiction troubles make for a reasonably affecting arc, but the travails of the other team members — including Syrian asylum seeker Aldar (Robin Nazari) and would-be ladies’ man Jason (Sheyi Cole), given a sharp #MeToo education when he inappropriately comes onto sparky Mexican-American player Rosita (Cristina Rodio) — are given very short shrift. At least one dramatic cycle of this could have been cut at no cost to the film’s narrative flow, though one can hardly blame “The Beautiful Game” for fixing its focus so insistently on Ward, whose volatile charisma quickens and complicates even a relatively thin character, and whose darting, restless screen energy pleasingly complements Nighy’s signature laid-back roguishness. Fresh from “Wicked Little Letters,” theater director Sharrock steers proceedings in unfussy, audience-minded fashion, but cranks up the emotional machinery exactly when she needs to: Those who can remain dry-eyed through a final-match montage set to Aretha Franklin’s mighty cover of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” are not viewers whom “The Beautiful Game” has any intention of reaching.
Or read this on Variety
